Freshly married, living in London and now a British citizen, Italian Luca Cupani is enjoying a new lease of life.

 

But it wasn’t always that way. Cupani tried and failed to leave Italy many times.  However his family obligations got in the way of his bid for freedom.

 

He builds his show around the fact he now finds himself a Happy Orphan.   With both his parents dispatched, he can finally lead the life he wants to live.

 

Ten years after his mother died he discovered he had to make a decision about the final resting place of her bones.   And he makes the most of this grisly story - returning again and again to the finality and indignity of death.

 

It’s no secret that Cupani once trained as a priest - and he is still of a philosophical bent - apt to ponder the big issues of life and exisitence.

 

He also has a tremendously funny take on Italian history - sweeping from the glories of Rome, to the heights of the Renaissance before landing with an ignominious thump on the lamentable rise of fascism and the reign of Mussolini.

 

In terms of his own family, Cupani has a keen eye for the absurd.   He laments his mother’s hypochondria and her devotion to smoking, he lambasts her failure to deliver presents or to administer maternal care.

 

He’s also brilliant when describing his own social awkwardness, particularly when it comes to love and romance. He’s great on sexual embarrasment - making it seem a miracle that he ever managed to approach a woman, let alone marry one.

 

Just in case we think he’s exaggerating Cupani has brought along a singularly unattractive picture of himself, while still living at home, prematurely aged with tragic eyes. It looks like a completely different person.

 

Cupani has crammed everything into this show - love, death, romance, art, history, humiliation. It is a huge confessional epic - which has taken him years of therapy to unpick.   But he also inspires plenty of joyful, unexpected laughter.